This story was excerpted from Jason Beck¡¯s Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

What is it like for a pitcher to throw the same pitch over and over and over?

Maybe it compares to a video game where one specific move always works and it¡¯s easy to just press the same button every time. But to physically throw the same pitch at hitters every time?

Or in the case of new Tigers reliever Tommy Kahnle, 61 times?

¡°I wasn¡¯t really sure what the number was,¡± Kahnle said of his postseason run of 61 consecutive changeups for the Yankees last October. ¡°But in the back of my head I¡¯m like, ¡®I have not thrown a fastball in a long time.¡¯ It just kept coming, and at the time it was working.¡±

By definition, the changeup is a pitch of deception, an offspeed pitch that¡¯s meant to look like a fastball but come in slower and with movement, disrupting hitters¡¯ timing and perception. Kahnle threw three times as many changeups as any other pitch in the regular season last year, and an even greater ratio in 2023. And it kept working. Opponents hit just .157 (19-for-121) off of it last year with a 38.9 percent whiff rate.

¡°Sometimes I go through these stretches where I could throw a ton of changeups in a row and get away with it,¡± Kahnle explained Thursday in a Zoom call with reporters. ¡°And then there¡¯s times where it doesn¡¯t work. It¡¯s almost like those times where it doesn¡¯t work, I¡¯ve got to kind of slow down a little bit more in the moment and try to figure out what we¡¯ve got to do to change the game plan and get these outs.¡±

Kahnle developed his changeup in 2011 with help from Carlos Chantres, a Class A coach in the Yankees' organization. At the time, Kahnle had a high-powered four-seam fastball, but also a two-seam changeup. Chantres, Kahnle said, suggested a four-seam changeup to get a similar look.

¡°I started noticing I got more of a depth drop to it,¡± Kahnle explained, ¡°so from then on I¡¯ve been throwing it that way.¡±

At that point, though, it was a third pitch.

¡°Through the Minors, it was never heavy usage,¡± Kahnle continued. ¡°They didn¡¯t really want me to throw it that much, because they wanted me to develop a slider. And obviously, that really hasn¡¯t panned out to this day.

¡°Through pro ball and getting up to the big leagues, there was a couple years, outlier years, where I had to use it a little bit more just because of my command. I felt like I wasn¡¯t clicking, everything wasn¡¯t all there with my command. My first couple years in Colorado [2014-15], maybe my first year in Chicago ['16], everything was a little out of whack mechanically, so there were days when I had to rely on it. But eventually, everything kinda clicked in 2017 and it¡¯s taken off from there.¡±

According to Baseball Savant, Kahnle was nearly even in fastballs and changeups with the Rockies in 2015, but he threw 61.5 percent fastballs in '16 and 63.4 percent in '17. By '18, he was throwing 54.4 percent fastballs, 40.2 percent changeups. In '19, he threw 51.9 percent changeups, 44.2 percent fastballs.

¡°I think it was just a little tail off of the fastball velo that year,¡± said Kahnle, whose average fastball velocity dropped from 97.8 mph in 2017 to 95.1 the following year. ¡°I think I eventually regained some of the velo later, but it seemed that my fastball just wasn¡¯t what it was. I always had a great changeup; we just didn¡¯t really utilize it a lot just because I had an elite fastball at the time. So eventually, we made the switch.¡±

Kahnle¡¯s changeup consistently has more vertical drop than other versions. Last year, the difference had grown to 3.8 inches against comparable pitches, according to Statcast. Other pitchers had a bigger difference, but few did it throwing the changeup as often and as hard as Kahnle does.

¡°It seems like a lot of guys would get on me about it,¡± Kahnle said. ¡°I would say probably 2022 [with the Dodgers] was when I really started, because a lot of guys with L.A., were chirping about it, like, ¡®You could throw this pitch 100 times. They know it¡¯s coming and they still can¡¯t hit it.¡¯¡±

That doesn¡¯t mean Kahnle wants to build another streak.

¡°I¡¯m comfortable doing that,¡± he said, ¡°but in the back of my head, I sometimes second-guess: Should I be throwing 75 percent changeups? There¡¯s also that philosophy that I¡¯m not too big on, but I would like to keep it relatively in the 60 percent range. That way I can still utilize my fastball, even though it¡¯s not the elite fastball it once was.¡±